Tag Archives: Gold Coast

Hello everyone🙂 I’m back!!! Did you miss me? I managed to write a couple of posts before I left, so I hope you’ve enjoyed them while I was gone hehe ~ I wanted to blog as soon as I got back, but unfortunately… I got very sick with food poisoning… and that has got to be the worse for foodies like myself… Anyhow, before you get too excited I’m actually leaving again😛 Because this weekend, I’m going to the Eat Drink Blog in Adelaide where I will get the chance to meet the other amazing food bloggers around Australia YAY!

Just wanted to share a few photos from our little Aussie trip ~ would you be interested in reading about some of my traveling adventures too? Or would you like me to stick to talking about food?🙂 our itinerary was Melbourne -> Sydney -> Brisbane then drive to Gold Coast🙂 We managed 3 cities in 5 days! I’m pretty impressed with our planning hehe. I know it may seem like a mad rush to most people, but we found it to be quite relaxing and I’m not one to spend 3 hours in on place😛

We actually traveled with Mr Bao’s cousin Little Luk but he was by no means the 3rd wheel because he’s the friend who introduced Mr Bao to me and I was friends with him before we went out🙂

We were very lucky the weather in all 3 cities was beautiful! Couldn’t ask for better weather, it was sunny but not too hot with a light breeze🙂 Being a foodie I dragged Mr Bao and Little Luk all over the place just for good food, we went to so many cafes/restaurants and took over 2500 photos! So my loveliest Readers please bare with me as I go through the photos and pick out the best ones so I can blog about it ~

Today, I’ve got a relatively short review of the ice-cream/gelato places I went to during this trip🙂 starting with the famously delicious Gelato Messina in Sydney ~ I’m sure all Readers from Sydney or have visited will know about Messina ~ They have been open since 2002 and have since been churning out the most delicious Gelato in Sydney or even Austalia😀

Messina has 3 retail stores one in Surry Hills, Darlinghurst and The Star Casino…and unintentionally and intentionally I went to all 3 stores😛 but only got gelalo from 2 as the Darlinghurst one wasn’t open when we walked past😦 I was so so so upset…because that was the only store that sold the mini gelato cakes especially that little mushroom gelato cake everyone keeps telling me about ~ Oh wells next time!

We walked into the Surry Hills store and I was confronted with so many gelato and sorbet flavours, I seriously did not know what to order! I was so tempted to get the Misto Plate which is 5 scoops of gelato, but Mr Bao stopped me because we had already had so much food before hand and were going to get even more food afterwards…sooooo being good, I only got 2 scoops.

Pistachio and Milk Chocolate with peanut butter $5AUD 2 scoops

Pistachio gelato is like the benchmark for me, if they do this well it usually means their gelato is yummy ~ and Messina did a fantastic job with their pistachio🙂 It had a genuinely strong pistachio flavour and nothing like that fake flavouring some places use. I particularly liked the texture of the gelato too it was creamy and smooth but not too rich or milky.

Moving on to Mr Bao’s milk chocolate with peanut butter, it had the same delicious texture but this time it was a lovely sweet milk chocolate gelato laced with peanut butter. Now I’m not a PB fan…so this wasn’t my favourite flavour ~ but I know all my PB loving friends and Readers will LOVE THIS!

Dulce De Leche and Hazelnut $5.5AUD 2 scoops

I didn’t know Little Luk loved ice-cream so much, he doesn’t really seem to have a sweet tooth, but he has a soft spot for ice-cream. Just before we went Sydney we visited The Star Casino, and hence went to the Messina there ~ I noticed that ice-cream there was slightly more expensive. I was tossing between the dulce de leche or the ‘Rethink Banoffee Pie’ which was caramel gelato with banana jam.

I eventually chose the dulce de leche and so glad I did ~ it didn’t have that burnt caramel taste, instead it was the sweet milk caramel taste🙂 while the hazelnut was definitely Little Luk’s favourite, he said I quote “I’m in heaven!” lol he loved the hazelnut flavour and creamy texture of the gelato.

And yes we are crazy because on the same day we had Messina lol we also went to N2 Extreme Gelato in Chinatown. I’ve seen so many bloggers review N2 and I had been intrigued of the idea of making ice-cream with liquid nitrogen and instead of the traditional method of churning.

The only other time I had heard of using liquid nitrogen to make ice-cream was when I was watching Heston Blumenthal’s TV show and reading his book Heston at Home🙂

Upon walking in N2, it really did feel like a science lab with everyone wearing lab coats and a large gas cylinder full of liquid nitrogen ~ it was strange to see bottles of ice-cream mixture in large test tubes, and the experienced ‘scientist’ would pour it into the KitchenAids and quickly freeze it with liquid nitrogen. Mr Bao was very excited about trying too being a scientist, he couldn’t stop telling us about the chemical reactions lol *rolls eyes*

The names for the gelato was also quite unique, I don’t think I would want to try the ‘cigar smoked Hainanese chicken rice’ and after much deliberation, we decided we’ll all get a flavoured we liked.

No surprise Mr Bao got Sleazy Strawberry, what a name eh? It was a mixture of freeze dried strawberries with Shiraz and milk gelato. Unfortunately, this sleazy strawberry did not have a strong strawberry flavour, it was actually quite bland and tasted more like tangy strawberry yoghurt instead. We did like the melt in your mouth, creamy texture of the gelato though.

Sleazy Strawberry $6

I got the buttered popcorn because I had heard it’s quite popular, this time it was aged milk gelato infused with buttered popcorn. It has the same creamy texture and rich milk flavour which complimented the tiny bits of buttered popcorn very well ~ Definitely our favourite!

Buttered Popcorn $6

Little Luk is officially my favourite ice-cream partner because he likes all the flavours I like as well😛 He chose the milky caramel with Murray River salt gel. We had mixed feelings about this flavour, once again we liked the texture but we didn’t find the flavours pronounce enough, it was a very light flavoured caramel and we couldn’t taste any salt in the caramel either.

Milky Caramel with Murray River Salt Gel $6

As I was taking photos, I noticed that the gelato was melting much quicker than regular gelato. Mr Bao said it’s because the liquid nitrogen doesn’t freeze the gelato like ice-cream machines. Our verdict – great smooth and velvety texture, but we didn’t think the flavours came through as much as we would have liked. There is actually a N2 store in HK too ~ so we’re hoping to try that one and see if the flavours are better🙂

Last ice-cream stop – Royal Copenhagen at Surfers Paradise🙂 It was a warm night and we were able to leave the Gold Coast and drive back to Brisbane. I had been relatively good that night lol and we didn’t really order desserts, so as we were walking back to our car…I spotted Royal Copenhagen and couldn’t help but grab myself some more ice-cream😛

I was particularly impressed when I saw that they really do make their waffles cones fresh on premises🙂 I wouldn’t mind having one of these machines at home hehe then I’ll have fresh waffle cones whenever I want them😛

I’ve had Royal Copenhagen before and quite like their buttery and strong milky taste of their ice-cream, it reminds me very much of Dairy Bell we have here in Melbourne ~ even better quality hehe.

They don’t have nearly as many flavours as Messina or as unique as N2, but it’s the traditional ice-cream store with honest yummy flavours and most importantly FREE toppings!

Dutch Chocolate Chip and Wildberry $6AUD 2 Junior scoops

I don’t usually choose chocolate flavoured ice-creams, because not many places produce a deep and rich chocolate ice-cream, but I tried the Dutch chocolate chip and immediately knew I wanted it. Mr Bao wanted something a little more refreshing and chose the Wildberry ~ I obviously said ‘yes’ to free toppings so got caramel sauce and crush macadamia nuts! YUM! My favourite! This was very yummeh ~ I just wished we had Royal Copenhagen in Melbourne too…so I wouldn’t have to fly interstate all the time lol

Hope you liked my first post about our Little Aussie Trip😀 Until next time, let us all eat more ICE-CREAM!